That's complete nonsense. An idea has neither size nor scope - it's an abstract concept.
What does being "abstract" have to do with things? Does the idea involve big concepts, or a lot of work? Or does it not?
Production level determines, very directly, both the amount and complexity of art assets and quite directly affects scope.
At best - only indirectly., Very indirectly. Scope is a - well, let's call it a list of features that you want the game to have. FPS. Space sim. Combat. Atmospheric flight and more.
The complexity of the art assets has nothing to do with any of that. Sure - you can argue that art is part of the scope of the game, but only to the degree that being able to see and understand what is happening is a feature the game needs to implement, and even then, the quality and complexity of those assets aren't part of it.
Star Citizen has a scope that includes FPS combat, MMO style interactions and multiplayer, Space Sim, resource gathering and so on. Having the game look pretty is not usually considered part of a games scope. I don't think even CIG feature it as part of a games scope - more of a selling point.
An indie game with a flat sphere for a planet does not have the same scope as a game that tries to model every grain of sand as an individual asset handcrafted by an artist, and explorable by a player using an in-game microscope.
No - that'd be the games **scale**, not its scope. An indie game could easily have a scope at least equal to or even greater than a AAA game. The budget for a AAA game would allow it to expand its scale, to allow the game to do more and to get into more detail, but the law of diminishing returns also applies. It would be an exaggeration to say you could get 90% of the game for 10% of the cost in a third the time with half the team but it would be a saying that definitely explains the problem AAA game tend to face.
They are EXPENSIVE and time consuming to develop, expectations are greater but, while the rewards are or can be great enough to take the risk, it should also be recognised that similar games with similar scopes can be achieved for much, much less.
This argument could be thought of as trying to provide CIG an excuse. And to a degree it does...except what CIG have produced is nowhere near the level of output expected from any other game studio in existence. To have a preAlpha build with an incomplete engine and devote so much of the companies resources to work that WILL be thrown away simply because you want to make sure a preAlpha...I want this understood, that this is a preAlpha...to be as playable, as accessible, as polished and as optimised as a Gold release...in an inexcusable waste of funds and talent. CIG haven't even mapped out much of the basic gameloops or mechanics and are developing - and worse, SELLING - game assets that use game mechanics that may not ever exist. They have an engine that is lacking fundamental, critical modules without which the game cannot function; adding those modules will require massive chunks of the game to be thrown out and recoded - just as they are doing with multithreading support - but without those modules, they don't have a game.
What you don't seem to realise is that many people on this forum...and indeed, on others...DO have some background in software and game development. We are fully aware of the complexities and issues that surround game development. We are fully cognizant of the technical issues and problems CIG faces in trying to create the game
And we are also aware that in the game development industry, CIG and Star Citizen are seen as a bit of a joke.
My own opinion is simple.
EVERYTHING CIG has promised...well, 90% of it (There are certain aspects that seem technically possible, but non viable at this point in time)....is achievable. We know this because it has already been done. Elite Dangerous has the Space Sim down pat. It is, IMO, the BDSSE - even with its problems. It also has planetary landings. It needs atmospheric landings, but FDev have also talked enough about that issue to make me fully aware that a: they want to do them and b: they are fully aware of the issues and problems surrounding the question "How to do it right". They could add atmospheric landings tomorrow if they so chose...but they want to add weather, a proper atmospheric flight model, and the necessary routines to procedurally generate plans, animals, birds, fish and so on.
Much of the work they are doing for Jurassic Park will be very suited for this type of activity. Which makes sense...the same technology can be used in more than one game. This is what it means when you have a fully working and flexible engine. The costs and risks are spread over multiple projects.
Same for FPS - FD could add a very simple system tomorrow. We know the engine can handle it. All they'd really have to do is replace the SRV model with an animated human model and adjust the speed accordingly. Doing it right means adding content to support FPS gameplay. Something CIG have yet to really do. They have FPS, but it is very basic, with no real gameplay attached or really planned out beyond the "lets do this" stage.
Wrong, it is a very complex game, and it was sold on that premise.
It might have been sold on the premise, but anyone who thinks SC is a complex game hasn't been paying attention. It's a multiplayer space sim with attached FPS mechanics. Or it's an FPS game with basic space flight and combat systems. Putting them both together doesn't make the game any more complex.
What makes a game "complex" are the mechanics and gameplay.
By whom? Any reasonable judgement of a game would be based primarily on how fun it is when it's released.
By us. By the players. By the backers. By devs. By anyone and everyone.
Right now, I judge Star Citizen because it's a game that has taken up to 500 people 6 years to develop, at a cost of about $150 million and produced a "game" that I'd expect would take a team of 10 or so no more than 2 years and perhaps $10 million (inc license fees) to create. OK...boost that team size up a bit to account for the artists. The drag it back down as I am told that I can't have artists working on polishing a game or creating assets until the game is in the beta stage and everything is just about locked down and if that means I have to work with grey cubes in the mean time, that is better than paying artists to create assets that would be thrown away. I can have the apprentice to create anything more substantial as he needs training anyway.
I would like it to at least have VR support, because otherwise it's not going to even remotely contend with ED for me.
Not gonna happen. CIG would need to radically redesign the complete user interface and rework major aspects of the game in order to get VR working properly.
However, if you are happy with just something called VR and aren't concerned about motion sickness or how it actually interacts and works with the game world, then you may get enough to keep you happy.
Otherwise, it should be basically a fun game (obviously) with more meaningful PVP interaction than what ED offers.
CIG don't appear to be too worried about content creation and their PvP mechanics to date ended when they dropped the PvP slider mechanic. The game seems headed towards a "Do what you can get away with" system.
Which many people will HATE and LOATHE with a passion.
But this all goes back to CIGs lack of planning, lack of design, lack of gameplay and mechanics.
I'm less interested in whether they deliver all their promises regarding the scope and features of the game. I know the fanatics will riot if CIG scales back their roadmap, but I think it would be very reasonable of them to do so, just to deliver a product.
They should. They really should. They need to cut huge amounts of material to lower their technical debt to make the game viable to release.#
The problem is, people PAID for those features and ship. They can't really cut a lot out.
"Added FPS gameplay" may not sound much, but means adding an enormous amount of content on top of the spaceship experience. Not only spaceships and stations need to have fully modelled interiors, everything needs to be modelled with such accuracy that it looks good even up close, in FPS mode.
Ideally, you'd get that content. So far, CIG hasn't delivered it, not for spaceships, not for FPS. It has plans, but if you get down to it, ED, NMS, SOT and all the rest also have plans.
Except some crucial part of the scope missing, and therefore, smaller scope...
Point out one thing Elite, as an example, doesn't have in its scope that Star Citizen does.
It has multiplayer and ships combat, trading and aliens, it has crafting and resource gathering, piracy and mercenary work, it has stations and planetary landings and more.
It doesn't have FPS and it doesn't have atmospheric landings...but those are planned additions. Just as they are for Star Citizen. If you want to dismiss them from Elites scope because they aren't yet in game, then you need to remove items from Star Citizen scope list as well because they aren't implemented. So - Star Citizen has you able to walk along corridors, but it doesn't have mining. Between the two, mining has more gameplay. Star Citizen has animated NPCs, but Elites NPCs gives you missions. Star Citzen has you able to land on atmospheric worlds, but Elite gives you things to do when you get there.
Which determines the scope possible with that budget.
No - it determines what can be done and to what level of detail. A big budget can allow for a grand scope with little detail, or it can allow for a small scope with huge detail, or it can allow for neither if the budget is squandered.
I agree, these are big differences. If they had a AAA level budget, they probably could have implemented better graphics and a fully developed multiplayer.
The art style was a deliberate choice, evoking 1950s style scifi. I like it. They may not have had the huge budget SC has, but they were nevertheless able to create and implement game mechanics. The only major feature of note that they don't have is better multiplayer capability. They have the basics, but little else.
So, the question is...if I replaced their art style with the style of graphics used in Star Citizen, but kept everything else the same, would SC or NMS be the better game? Despite the lack of multiplayer capability, I suspect quite a few would say NMS. It has the looks, it has the gameplay and mechanics. It even has limited multiplayer interactions but I understand further improvements are coming.
NMS has mechanics. It has content. It has an art style all of its own.
And it took TWELVE developers (on average) less than $20 MILLION and three years to create.
From scratch
Creating their own custom engine.
Compare what that team created with what CIG has managed to do.
THAT is what a team of devs can create in three years with competent management and leadership. Sure, if you don't like the graphics, then a more detailed style such as that used by SC could be added, and that would increase the time and costs involved - but are those models in Star Citizen really worth $130 million and four years?
NMS has problems. So does ED. But they are out, they are complete, and they show and prove that SC **COULD** have been created, from scratch, in less time, with less money and fewer developers. What they are missing is the result of deliberate choice rather than lack of skill or desire. I have no idea where the money for Star Citizen went. But it didn't go into Star Citizen.
3.0 is NOT indicative of work by up to 500 employees over 6 years or $180 million. It's only a fraction of what NMS has delivered....no gameplay, no content, no gameloops or mechanics, no procedural generation. But NMS did it with a fraction of the team size and budget and time. SC is still stuck with a preAlpha and no sign of getting out of that phase anytime soon. Worse, much of the work they are doing right now will be thrown away as the game transitions into Alpha and Beta and other game aspects are locked down and the limitations acknowledged. Backers probably won't care that the Idris they are flying might be on its sixth iteration, but each time that model had to be thrown away and reworked, it costs money and time.
You have to fill it with something, and developing that something takes time and money. The bigger area to fill, the more time and money.
Which is not "scope".
If you don't agree those are part of the project's scope, you don't seem to understand where most of the money in a game's budget go.
I have a fair idea of where the money goes. But it doesn't matter how much money goes on graphical assets. They aren't part of the scope of a game. They are part of what enables the scope to be realised.
